Jaguar Land Rover employee data breach

Jaguar Land Rover have been subject to an employee data breach that has reportedly affected hundreds of staff.

The personal and sensitive employee data for hundreds of agency staff at the firm’s Solihull site is understood to have been shared around the workforce as the carmaker sets to embark on a job redundancy program that may affect thousands of employees.

The data breached includes payroll information and personal data about days of absence, and even employee disability information.

According to reports, 647 Jaguar Land Rover agency staff are involved in the employee data breach. the incident has been classified as a “data leak”.

Data involved in the breach includes:

• Employee names;
• Employee payroll numbers;
• Employee disciplinary records;
• Employee sickness records;
• Employee disability information.

The employee data involved in this breach is personal and, in some cases, incredibly sensitive. One of the files leaked is reportedly named “release list” which shows the details of hundreds of staff with red lines marked on the list, suggesting that this is a list of employees who are soon to be let go. Jaguar Land Rover are reportedly going to be initiating a program of redundancies, but it’s understood that some staff whose information is on the “release list” are yet to be informed of whether they will be affected by the redundancies or not.

In response to the data breach, an anonymous employee reportedly said:

“It’s disgusting really. People are walking round telling each other when they are leaving the business. It’s embarrassing for everyone. You’re driving round with people knowing you’re going to lose your job. It’s all you can see, everyone just looking at the documents, discussing it with each other.”

Jaguar Land Rover has launched an investigation into the data breach, which is thought to be affecting DHL agency staff as well.

In response to the data breach, they said:

“We are aware of this extremely serious situation and we have raised this matter with DHL and we are investigating. We take the personal data and security of Jaguar Land Rover employees extremely seriously.”

News of the Jaguar Land Rover employee data breach comes within days of the new GDPR coming into force. Although it’s not yet known as to whether Jaguar Land Rover may be about to feel the full wrath of the new regulations, as it may depend on exactly when the leak occurred, we may be about to see the first organisation suffer the consequences of GDPR.

This employee data breach is serious, especially given that there are reportedly some staff who may now be aware they are going to be let go before even being told.

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